The interior of the Hall of Knights was huge. It was connected to several buildings and was half the size of the palace. Due to the conscription order, there were more knights here than before.
After passing through several passages, Locke saw the tavern where missions were issued. However, he didn't even look at it and walked straight in. The noise and the stench of sweat made him uninterested in approaching the tavern.
At the moment, the bounty missions weren't that good. At least, most of the missions near Princeton had been taken. The knights also needed to make a living. Potions for training, a place to live, equipment maintenance, all of these things required money.
If there weren't any missions for a long time, most of them would have a hard time.
When the commercial street appeared in front of Locke, he was surprised by the sounds of people shouting, talking, bargaining and laughing.
The empty spaces between the shops on both sides of the street were now crowded with vendors. Knights in different attire and armour stood behind them. They were probably the stall owners.
The street was also crowded. It was as spacious as Sanschel Avenue, but Locke couldn't even find a place to stand.
He had no choice but to follow the flow of people and slowly move forward.
Sure enough, there were many good things in the commercial street these days, just like Xith had said.
It was unknown where these Knights had come from, but they were all selling different things. There were potions, magic beast materials, magic axes, and all sorts of strange items.
For example, the person in front of Locke had a long black horn on his stall. It looked like a military horn, but it also looked like the horn of some kind of animal. Locke couldn't tell if it was natural or man-made.
The stall owner was masked, revealing only a pair of dark yellow eyes. He didn't introduce the items in his stall to the passing knights, as if he didn't care what they were selling.
Even so, it still attracted a lot of people to stop and point at the items in his stall. It seemed that some knowledgeable people knew what they were.
Locke wasn't interested in being blinded. He had just advanced to a high-rank Knecht, so he didn't know much about many things at this stage. It was better to go to the group of demon hunters that Xith mentioned.
Kangle Tavern was located in the latter half of the commercial street. It wasn't the best location, but it wasn't bad either. An hour had passed by the time he arrived.
Most knights liked to drink. There was nothing better than alcohol to get closer to each other. Locke and Xith frequented the Recreation Tavern because it sold ale and beer.
He'd never seen the owner of Recreation Bar before. According to Xith, he was a fat middle-aged man who was a quasi-Knecht when he was young. As he aged, his strength dropped to a high-rank Knecht.
The owner was probably a southerner from Missia. As far as he knew, beer and ale were only popular in the southern kingdoms near Faustian.
Although he might not necessarily be a Faustian knight, Recreation Tavern gave him a rare sense of familiarity. He had already dragged Xith here for drinks several times, but most of the time, he was the one footing the bill.
As it was the hottest time in the afternoon, the pub's business was also the best. Perhaps the pub on the side had attracted a lot of knights, the flow of people here had decreased a lot.
He looked around for the Demon-Hunter Knight that Xith had mentioned.
A group of strangely dressed knights in leather armour attracted Locke's attention.
Most of the knights preferred to wear armor, whether it was heavy armor, chainmail, or half-body armor. They rarely wore leather armor because it didn't have much protection. Therefore, they would only choose some light and thin inner armor.
Apart from the leather armour, the faint magical waves around the group of knights were what attracted Locke the most.
The source of the magical waves was the equipment they were wearing and the various items on the stalls at their feet.
They were the real bosses. Locke could sense no less than three magical waves coming from one of the black-armoured knights.
The only magic equipment Locke was wearing was the spatial ring hanging around his neck. The magical waves from the spatial ring were relatively weak, so it was hard for people to notice it in such a crowded place. There were magic engravings on his longsword and froststeel armour, but he didn't bring them out. They were still lying quietly in the spatial ring.
It was rude to stare at others so blatantly. The knights seemed to be working together and none of them looked easy to deal with. Locke could only use the corner of his eye to determine the source of the magical waves from the knight in front of him.
There were three spots in total: the neck, the waist and the soles of the feet.
Locke couldn't see the magic items around the neck, but he could recognize the ones around the waist and the soles of the feet.
There was a brass belt inlaid with a dark red jewel and a pair of shiny silver shoes.
Locke didn't know what the belt was for, but he didn't need to guess to know what the magic shoes were for. He had long wanted to get a pair of magic shoes to increase his speed, but he didn't have the means to do so.
There were also missions in the academy's mission hall that rewarded magic shoes, but they weren't worth the risk. If he wanted to buy them, the expensive nature of the magic equipment would probably make him go bankrupt.
He could only comfort himself by asking Angelina to make a pair for him when her alchemy skills improved.
Angelina could now make magic scrolls for low-level spells such as Illumination, Moisturize and Lighten. Her success rate was seventy percent, which was a significant improvement.
In addition to sizing up the knight, Locke also looked at the items on the stall in front of him.
Most of them were made of ordinary materials. Major monster armor was the most common, followed by magic plants and rare metals. There were only five pieces of magic equipment, and their energy waves were weaker than the three the knight was carrying.
There were six or seven knights standing in front of the stall, their eyes fixed on the five pieces of magic equipment.
"How much is this timer?" A green-haired knight pointed at a round, translucent piece of metal and asked the knight in black armour.
"Five high-grade magic cores or six thousand gold moores," said the knight in black armour.
"How about a cheaper price?" asked the green-haired knight.
The knight in black armour didn't say anything. He crossed his arms and shook his head.
After hesitating for a while, the green-haired knight could only give up. The price was beyond what he could afford.
As the name suggested, a timer was a piece of equipment designed by mages to calculate time. This was because the knowledge involved not only magic but also some principles of Olympiad mathematics. It was rarely seen in the Three Western Isles. Only the mages on the East Coast had the ability to mass-produce such a thing.
A timer was a simple piece of magic equipment, but Locke couldn't accept the fact that it was being sold for six thousand gold moores.
Angelina had a timer in her hand. It was a gift from her grandmeisterin to keep time during alchemy experiments.
"I'll take it!" said another knight standing next to her.
He took out six gold cards from his waist and handed them to the knight in black armour.
"Okay." The knight in black armour checked the authenticity of the gold cards and nodded in agreement.
The knight in black armour didn't stay any longer. He picked up the timer and disappeared into the crowd.
A timer could be very useful for knights. Those who often carried out missions in jungles or deserts would use it more often to keep track of time.
"Brother Moss, did you close a deal?!" A feminine voice called out from Connaught Tavern.
Locke raised his head slightly and saw a young female knight in dark red armour walking towards him from the opposite tavern.
"Wow, so much money!" The female knight wasn't pretentious at all. She grabbed the knight in black armour's hand and was so excited that only gold coins existed in her eyes.
"You silly girl!" The knight in black armour, who had been expressionless all this while, broke into a rare smile. He patted the female knight's head and took out a gold card. "Take this and have something to drink!" said the knight in black armour as he handed the card to the female knight.
"Hehe, Brother Moss, you're so nice. I'll buy you a bottle of beer too!" The female knight giggled and gave the knight a hug before returning to the tavern.
Locke's mouth twitched as he pretended not to hear a thing. How much could she drink? Connaught Tavern wasn't that expensive. Ten gold moores would be enough for an afternoon's worth of drinks.
"Brother Moss, you spoil Laney too much," said another knight who was also setting up a stall.
"Yeah, I dote on her even more than her brother, Wright!"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah."
The surrounding Demon Hunter Knights seemed to know each other as they agreed with the first knight's words and agreed with him.
"Haha." The knight in black armour just smiled and didn't respond.
It was then that Locke realised that the unassuming knight in black armour was also a quasi-knight.
The other knights in black armour weren't simple either. Locke felt that they weren't any weaker than him.
The timer was gone and there were four magic items left: a worn-out wooden box, two magic scrolls and a leaf-shaped pendant.
He didn't know what the wooden box was for, but he could sense the pendant through the magical waves. It should be some kind of shield. The energy intensity wasn't high, and it was only as strong as a low-rank spell. For a high-rank knight, it was useless.
Locke looked left and right, but couldn't find anything he wanted. He was ready to leave for the next stall.
"Do you have any equipment that can store living things?" Locke asked before he left. In his opinion, the knight in black armour was quite popular here. Even if he didn't, he should be able to give him some advice.
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